If any of you read Pete’s most recent blog post you’ll see that we decided to use the Intelligender “at home” gender prediction test to determine the likely gender of Baby “Wiggles”. Unfortunately I missed the part in the FAQs on their website that mentioned it is not recommended that women who have PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) use the test as it is likely to return a positive “Boy” result. Although they don’t come out and say it, this is likely due to the fact that women (like me) affected by PCOS often have increased androgen (male hormone) levels, hence the likely “Boy” result.

What is PCOS? According to experts at the Mayo Clinic, PCOS “is the most common hormonal disease among women of reproductive age”. What does this mean for my pregnancy? Well, not much actually. I’m already taking Metformin to help alleviate my Insulin Resistance and it’s supposed to help with the PCOS as well. The biggest worry for women who are trying to conceive is that PCOS can cause infertility. I’m already pregnant so that’s not really a concern for me right now. The other indicators (obesity, insulin resistance/prediabetes) are being addressed through medication, diet and exercise.

Why would we care about the baby’s gender if we’re considering abortion? Why not? It’s one of those questions that will drive people crazy the entire pregnancy. If you can find out early on, it’s just one less thing to obsess about. Unfortunately this test isn’t necessarily accurate for women with PCOS, so my positive “Boy” result means about as much as my “feeling” that Baby “Wiggles” is a girl. So just like every other couple that wants to know the gender of their baby as soon as possible, we will have to wait a little while longer (although according to several articles I’ve read gender indicators can be read as early as 11 or 12 weeks).

At this point we would be happy to have a healthy baby of either gender, but we both agree that we would like to start our family with a boy. As I mentioned in my We’re Pregnant post, I have several young nephews and it would be fun to have a son so that he could play with his male cousins when our family gets together. For any subsequent pregnancies I would be happy to have as many girls as possible!